Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Foreign Policy & News Chinese take out

Me and the dog were walking down to the local brewery t'other day when we spotted an especially nice pick-up truck coming our way. Spelled across the front in broad letters it said:

"SHELBY"

A little bit of Googling told me that's a $124K truck.

Apparently a lot of them are doing pretty well. Even down here around poverty level things are okay. My government stipend covers my expenses and I never wonder where the next meal is coming from. And judging from the vehicles I see on the streets and the level of spending I see all around me, things are ticking along nicely.

One daughter just received a doctorate and the other just landed a job as head barista at a cafe in Portland, Maine.

Commerce continues to continue. Yes, I'm aware that there are some issues. Some will get fixed, some won't, same as always.

China is no workers paradise. They pulled people out of poverty by forcing them off the farms where they needed no money into jobs where they never had enough. To make useless plastic widgets for the world.

I don't consume a lot of widgets. Many of my widgets were made in China though because Chinese drive to become the world's maker of widgets has made it impossible to buy widgets made anywhere else.

They aren't doing it for the benefit of the workers. And they aren't a shining city on a hill.

If you'll turn your steely gaze toward some of the Northern European democracies you will find something nearer to the mixed economies that modern socialists are looking for.

These are the missing link in Marxist theory I think, not huge autocratic governments regulating every aspect of people's lives.

There is currently no stomach for serious social reform in the US and no voter base to bring them about. And so we watch our government fumble and bumble along, just as others around the world watch their own governments fumble and bumble along.

Progress is never fast and it's never easy.

I looked out my window just now and it's raining. It must be raining everywhere else. I'm taken care of, therefore everyone else is taken care of.

Asians do Marxism wrong, they're rapid rise in living standards are authoritarian and exploitative. Northern Europeans do it right. They never had a whiff of exploitation in their transition to an industrial society.


There is serious support for redistributive policies amongst the public here. The ruling classes aren't interested in pursuing them. There is no vehicle in our politics to translate popular support into public policy as a result, IMO.

Anyways, lets keep arming an egging on an island that has been used as a base for invasion of China, now an industrial powerhouse, and see how that's gunna work out.

What suckers. They banned bitcoins and built a modern transportation network instead. What goods that gunna do?

I'd say!

I'd take $124K and put it into my house expansion. I've decided that when I win the Lotto, I'm investing in real estate and not stocks.

and, sometimes, BOTH parties end up poorly. Right now Russia is blowing the hell out of Ukraine. In doing that I think they have lost a lot of their generals, their population is getting a bit upset over all the new rules that are just plain strange. Like the one that sends anybody to jail that even mentions the "war' with Ukraine. The dead soldiers returning (many just go up in smoke) tend to upset families, mothers, etc. Basically, Russia is, I think, in very serious trouble and we are also told that their army has suffered a LOT of casualties. We are also told that Putin has thousands of his own people in prison for whatever.

Basically, if if Russia wins the battle they are going to have to deal with a population which is a bit upset (to say the least). I am not even sure what happens if Ukraine actually wins.

Another thing that nobody seems to be talking about is what Russia is doing in Africa. That whole deal just might blow up on them as well. I noticed that Biden has now sent the brand new black four star marine general over there. That one just might get interesting as well.

They have also completely demolished the threat of the last 75 years of the Russians rolling their invincible armada of tanks into Western Europe. Turns out their maintenance is so poor and theft is so high, most of their tank fleet couldn't even get to the border, much less threaten anybody. Tanks that did get to Ukraine were deathtraps for their crews: 21 million dollar tanks destroyed by $6000 shoulder-launched cruise missiles. A lot of experts are wondering if their nuclear weapons and ICBMs have received similar negligence.

Wait...this is China! The Russian thread is over there,<<<<<

China got pissy when Pelosi visited Taiwan. The visit was probably unnecessary and probably designed to rile up China for one reason or another.

China needs to be reminded now and then just who it is buying all their stupid widgets! Without exceptional American consumerism China would be up to their asses in excess widgets in the blink of an eye.

I've been saying that since February 2022. Many responders to my post say they don't want to take a chance to find out if that's true.

We've sent envoys over to Taiwan every other year.
True they usually weren't SoH but the point is, this is by far not the first time a US envoy has visited Taiwan.
China is looking for an excuse to divert attention from the impending collapse of their ghost city realty investment buckets.

So the neocon consensus is it’s better to be a superpower consumer than a superpower manufacturer. Alrighty. Like the Ukraine conflict, it will be interesting to watch how you cope with the reality of that bad bet.

China just inked a massive MOU with Saudi Arabia for oil development and supply this week, btw. Makes all that assisting in genociding Yemen seem like a waste of time. It did move merch so there’s that.

Neocons gunna neocon I guess.

Despite every bad political decision made in the last century by every neocon neofascist, neoliberal, neonazi, neosocialist, or neo-whatever is the fave over at Jacobin this week, reality is working out okay for me. I haven't had much input into any of them but apparently, the end of times scenarios painted by dissenters to those various bad decisions have failed to ruin my life.

More specifically ...yes. I would rather be the rich puchaser of cheap foreign goods than the slanty-eyed dude in the sweatshop churning out widgets and sleeping on the floor in some distant exotic worker's paradise. Superpowers are not something I've ever strived for.